Sunburst, Inc. was founded by Reverend Jacob Hauser in the 1870s as the Winnebago Indian Mission of the Reformed Church. In its later incarnation as Sunburst, Inc., the agency would maintain an affiliation with the United Church of Christ (UCC). In 1920, land was purchased in Neillsville, Wisconsin, and the institution became known as the Winnebago Indian School. The institution's original mission was to minister to the Winnebago Indian population but when Winnebago children began to streamline into public schools in the 1950s, it became the Winnebago Children's Home. By the mid-1960s it had become a residential treatment center for temporarily displaced or emotionally disturbed children. In 1973 the Children's Home changed its name to Sunburst and in 1975 the Sunburst Youth Home Foundation was incorporated. In the 1980s Sunburst extended its mission to include family therapy and outpatient health services. In 1989 the Family Services aspect became incorporated as United Church Family Services. In addition to the main campus in Neillsville, two additional group homes were operated in Wisconsin: one for boys in Platteville and one for girls in Monroe.
The organization was hierarchical with a Board of Directors overseeing three separate branches: Sunburst Youth Homes (SBYH), Sunburst Family Services (SFS) and the Sunburst Foundation. These in turn were composed of several sub-offices and committees, each answering to an overseeing officer, such as the Personnel Director, the Director of Development of the Foundation, the Director of Family Services, or the Chief Financial Officer. All of these answered to the Chief Executive Officer who was overseen by the Board of Directors. The Sunburst Foundation managed the monetary aspects of the agency, which received most of its funding from service fees and charitable donations. The Foundation also coordinated fundraising and boosted relationships between the community and Sunburst, overseeing the Friends of Sunburst chapters, as well as public and church relations.
Sunburst experienced frequent financial difficulties throughout the 1990s, often due to its dependence on in-patient enrollment and charitable donations. For these reasons, the SBYH branch of the agency closed its doors in March 2001. Following its closure, several members of the Board of Directors and the CEO were sued by the Bank of Withee, which had already foreclosed on a loan Sunburst had used to pay its employees rather than its mortgage. The agency managed to remain active by collaborating with other agencies with similar objectives. Two of the buildings on the Neillsville campus were leased to the Lutheran Social Services and Sunburst Family Services was incorporated under Orion Family Services, which also maintained a UCC affiliation. The Sunburst Foundation remained intact, also working in conjunction with Orion to continue the Sunburst mission of helping troubled youth.
